294th Edition – March 6, 2018

A new biotech company is opening in Gaithersburg, and is bringing with it 100 new jobs in the next three to five years.

Read More

AstraZeneca has carved off six inflammation and autoimmune assets to create a new biotech, Viela Bio. The startup put together a $250 million series A round and a management team from its parent company to guide the mix of clinical and preclinical programs forward.

Read More

You thought the Shark Tank was tough…

wait until you enter the the BioHealth Capital Region Crab Trap!

Submit your application for the opportunity to be named the company with the most commercial potential at the 2018 BioHealth Regional Forum, $10,000, and MORE!

Application Deadline: March, 30th 2018 

Finalists will be announced: April 9th, 2018 

Finalist Presentations BioHealth Capital Region Forum Event: April 24th, 2018

Submit an Application »

Read More

Did you know you are required to file for and receive a Hazardous Use Permit every year if you are storing, handling or using any hazardous substance in excess of 5 gallons or 50 pounds? (Failure to do so could result in civil and criminal penalties.)  Learn how to do this at the free training session, March 8th, at the Germantown Innovation Center, hosted by BioHealth Innovation and Montgomery County’s Office of Emergency Management and Homeland Security

Bring your laptop and materials inventory to a 15 minute 1:1 meetings with County staff and they will help you register your materials as required on the County’s website.  (Pre-registration for these appointments is REQUIRED). 

To schedule an appointment, send your top 3 time preferences to BHI@BioHealthInnovation.org

Meeting slots are assigned on a first-come, first-served basis: 8:45, 9:00, 9:15 a.m. – Open 9:30-11:30 a.m. – Booked 11:30, 11:45 a.m.  – Open 12:00, 12:15 p.m. – Open

More information:  https://Hazmat.MontgomeryCountyMD.gov

Read More

Baltimore’s Sisu Global Health Inc. is launching its first medical device product and planning for growth in 2018.

Sisu, founded in 2014, specializes in creating health technologies to solve public health problems. The company is backed by $2.1 million in funding from various sources including local investors Camden Partners, the Abell Foundation and state-backed Maryland Technology Development Corp. It also won an investment from venture capitalist and AOL co-founder Steve Case, through his Rise of the Rest initiative.

Read More

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has awarded Emergent BioSolutions Inc. a $26 million contract to continue to supply a medical treatment to the government.

Read More

The Maryland Tech Council (MTC) has announced the finalists for its 30th Anniversary Industry Awards Celebration. Winners will be revealed at a celebration on May 17, 2018 at The Hotel at The University of Maryland. The event, which draws more than 600 executives from the technology and life science communities, celebrates individuals and companies that have made a significant impact in their sectors.

Read More

Tell us about the impact your research may make on the world. You could win a free pre-clinical research study valued up to $20,000 and $1,000 in cash, or additional cash prizes.  

SoBran and the Maryland Tech Council are celebrating the transformational science coming out of the Maryland and surrounding area by establishing the Innovation for Impact Prize.

Read More

Natalia Majewska spent the summer after her junior year at Northwestern University interning in a lab at MedImmune, the Gaithersburg, Maryland-based global biologics research and development arm of pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca. There, she worked in a lab developing synthetic proteins.

Read More

A new incubator is helping its first companies at Johns Hopkins this school year. Run by a group of undergraduate students, The Hatchery Incubator is helping undergraduate students who are starting companies.

It’s an initiative of TCO Labs, a nonprofit organization founded by students that’s looking to provide more startup resources on campus.

Read More

Silicon Valley is home to an abundance of VC firms, all of them competing to get in on the next big deal. But VCs also exist (and succeed) outside of the Bay Area. While Washington, D.C. may not be an obvious location to establish a venture capital firm, Lavrock Ventures set its sights on the political capital. The firm announced today that it has closed its first fund at $25 million to invest in early-stage startups at the intersection of enterprise software, cybersecurity, and national security.

Read More

Personal Genome Diagnostics is adding to its IP portfolio to further develop new kinds of cancer tests.

A licensing deal announced Wednesday gives the Canton-based company exclusive rights to develop and commercialize products based on a key discovery at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York. Financial terms were not disclosed.

Read More

When: Tuesday, March 27, 2018 from 4:00 PM to 7:30 PM EDT

Where: Montgomery College Pinkney Innovation Complex: Science & Technology 20200 Observation Drive Germantown, MD 20876

Join us for our first Women in Pharma event! This community is for those in the pharmaceutical/biotech industry and is a community of mentors, resources across all levels, and provide educational sessions that will be an enabler for career success and work-life balance. All are welcome.

Read More

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is undertaking an ambitious plan to assess Federal technology transfer efforts to enable greater “Return on Investment” (ROI) from the Federal Government’s $140 Billion annual investment in research and development (R&D). NIST is uniquely positioned to implement this initiative through our government-wide leadership role within the Department of Commerce, including delegated (link is external) regulatory authority and responsibility for annual reporting to the President and Congress.

Read More

For decades, state and local economies have leaned heavily on their anchor institutions during times of economic uncertainty and transition. An analysis finds that total employment in “Eds and Meds” industries increased in every state from 2005 to 2015. This article breaks down the growth and geography of Eds and Meds employment at the state level, while next week’s issue of the Digest will explore this data by metropolitan area.

Read More

Emergent BioSolutions Inc. (NYSE:EBS) and Valneva SE (Euronext Paris:VLA) today announced the initiation of a Phase 1 clinical trial in the U.S. to evaluate the safety and immunogenicity of VLA1601, their vaccine candidate against Zika virus.

Read More

“The first opportunity we have to delight or to upset a client is when they walk through the door either physically or virtually.”

Sounds like a tech executive, right? Jeff Bezos even? The Amazon boss often talks about delighting customers, after all, although until recently the ecommerce giant didn’t really have doors to physically walk through.

Read More

Senti Biosciences, a startup that’s looking to make a new treatment that’s upending how we treat cancer, just raised $53 million.

Read More

Apple is launching medical clinics for its employees in the latest attempt by a large tech company to address the U.S.’s growing healthcare problem. The new project, called AC Wellness, is launching sometime in the spring, according to its new website.

Read More

Researchers from theUniversity of Maryland School of Medicine (UMSOM) and the University of Maryland A. James Clark School of Engineering have developed a new military vehicle shock absorbing device that may protect troops from traumatic brain injury (TBI) after a land mine blast. Over the past 18 years of conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, more than 250,000 troops have suffered such injuries.

Read More

When: Wednesday, March 14, 2018 from 5:00 PM to 7:00 PM

Where: Bar Louie 150 Gibbs St Rockville, MD 20850

Join BioBuzz and founding sponsor The Johns Hopkins University Montgomery County Campus at Bar Louie on March 14th. The Johns Hopkins University Montgomery County Campus offers part-time graduate courses in biotechnology fields. Students attend classes in the evenings and on Saturdays, enabling them to hold full-time jobs during the day. Depending on the degree area, students can fully complete their coursework in Montgomery County. Other students take some courses in Baltimore and/ or online.

Read More

Entrepreneurship is on the rise in Hampton Roads and there’s an event to celebrate it.

757 LAUNCH, from 12:30 p.m. to 2 p.m. on March 30 at the Selden Market in Norfolk, will showcase three new resources to support area entrepreneurs and startups.

Read More

The Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society has acquired Healthbox, looking to tap the business accelerator for its consulting and fund management capabilities.

Read More

Studying such real-world evidence offers manufacturers a powerful tool to prove the value of their drugs – something Roche (ROG.S) aims to leverage, for example, with last month’s $2 billion purchase of Flatiron Health.

Read More

The i.Invest Competition is designed to help entrepreneurial-minded youth, ages 13 -19, further advance their business development and pitching skills and connect with mentors, judges and investors from across the country. The competition will:

• Showcase the entrepreneurial spirit of the nation’s brightest young leaders;
• Provide a venue for entrepreneurs to test their business plan and pitching capabilities;
• Offer opportunities for entrepreneurs to earn seed funding and connect with investors and potential customers;
• Position entrepreneurs to collaborate with mentors and coaches on the development of viable business models; and
• Provide opportunities for entrepreneurs to win cash and in-kind prizes.

Read More

Across the globe, a collection of healthcare professionals gather around their computer screens in their respective offices in Beijing, Brussels, London, and Los Angeles. A skilled U.S.-based oncologist leads this virtual board in discussing a 38-year-old British patient with advanced lung cancer. Using virtual reality technology, the team is able to simultaneously review the patient’s entire disease profile, including her medical history and lifestyle, and see high-resolution pathology images and all sorts of other biological data.

Read More

The University of Maryland’s SGA will send a letter to Amazon supporting Montgomery County for the company’s second headquarters, called HQ2.

Read More